Brandon Sanderson, born in Nebraska in 1975, found his love for fantasy literature in junior high, inspiring him to write his own novels.
He studied at Brigham Young University, initially as a biochemistry major, but his passion for writing led him to switch to English.
Juggling studies, work and writing, Sanderson authored seven novels during his undergraduate years despite multiple rejections.
A valuable part of his journey was his involvement with The Leading Edge, BYU’s science fiction/fantasy magazine. In 2003, editor Moshe Feder from Tor offered to publish Sanderson’s manuscript, leading to the release of his first novel, “Elantris” in 2005.
Sanderson expanded his repertoire with a children’s series, an ebook and was chosen to complete Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” series.
Recognized with various awards, his work has been published in thirty-five languages, made the New York Times Best-Seller List fifteen times and his stories have been optioned for multimedia adaptation.
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He continues to mentor aspiring writers and hosts the writing advice podcast “Writing Excuses”.
Here is a compilation of the quotes by Brandon Sanderson.
Best Brandon Sanderson Quotes
The hallmark of insecurity is bravado. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Men rarely see their own actions as unjustified. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Accept the pain, but don’t accept that you deserved it. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
People see in stories what they’re looking for, my young friend. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Control yourself. Become someone who can handle this. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
A man was defined not by his flaws, but by how he overcame them. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Oh, I’m just a happy person. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Plots behind plots, plans behind plans. There was always another secret. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Our weakness doesn’t make us weak. Our weakness makes us strong. For we had to carry it all these years. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
The measure of a person is not how much they have lived. It’s in how they make use of what life has shown them. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
This is going to take a while. I’m a fantasy author. We have trouble with the concept of brevity. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
A story doesn’t live until it is imagined in someone’s mind. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Famous Brandon Sanderson Quotes
You’re a sword not a palm tree. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
The motivations of men. They never make sense. And they always make sense. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Life before Death. Strength before Weakness. Journey before Destination. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Remember, the past need not become our future as well. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Failure is refusing to fight. Failure is remaining quiet and hoping someone else will fix the problem. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
If you perpetuate the dreams of the past, you stifle your own dreams of the future. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
You could be writing the book that changes your life. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
There are several ways to achieve a goal. Failure is preferable to winning through unjust means. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
You’ll never learn how to do your endings until you FINISH your endings. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
That’s kind of what trust is, isn’t it? A willful self-delusion. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Mocking a woman is like drinking too much wine. It may be fun for a short time, but the hangover is hell. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Ultimate Brandon Sanderson Quotes
The most important step a person can take is always the next one. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
But, what is money? A physical representation of the abstract concept of effort. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you’ll end up miserable. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
It’s easy to believe in something when you win all the time…The losses are what define a man’s faith. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Somebody has to start. Somebody has to step forward and do what is right, because it is right. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Err on the side of awesome. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
The nature of morality must be considered, and preferably before one is exposed to situations where a moral decision is required. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Faith means that it doesn’t matter what happens. You can trust that somebody is watching. Trust that somebody will make it all right. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
The most important word a man can say are, ‘I will do better.’ ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Popular Brandon Sanderson Quotes
You will find that hate can unify people more quickly and more fervently than devotion ever could. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
It seems that the rebels found the chaos of transition more difficult to accept than the tyranny they had known before. They joyfully welcomed back authority-even oppressive authority-for it was less painful for them than uncertainty. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Act with honor, and Honor will aid you. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Ignorance is hardly unusual, Miss Davar. The longer I live, the more I come to realize that it is the natural state of the human mind. There are many who will strive to defend its sanctity and then expect you to be impressed with their efforts. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
In the end, I must proclaim that no good can be achieved of false means. For the substance of our existence is not in the achievement, but in the method. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
The most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it? It’s the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
I take two hours off for my family every day. And then I write fourteen hours. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Remember that your job as a practicing writer is to remember it’s never going to be perfect on your first pass. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Spectacles. They were kind of like a hat for smart people. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
What is belief – what is faith – if you don’t continue it after failure? ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. Speak again the ancient oaths and return to men the Shards they once bore. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
I’ve always been very confident in my immaturity. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
I am a writer who works from an outline. What I generally do when I build an outline is I find focal, important scenes, and I build them in my head and I don’t write them yet, but I build towards them. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
When I write my books, actually, I’m known for very logical rule-based magic systems. I write with one foot in fantasy and one foot in science fiction. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Being polite to a person is not a sign of respect for them. It is merely a sign of a good upbringing and a balanced nature. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
To believe in a God was to accept that He or She wasn’t going to deliver you from every problem. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Top Brandon Sanderson Quotes
It is a writer’s greatest pleasure to hear that someone was kept up until the unholy hours of the morning reading one of their books. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and – if you’re not careful – those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Impossible things are really rough to do, you know. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
The number 1 thing that I don’t want to see in a story is when characters exist simply to be proven wrong. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Start writing the things that you are reading or that you want to be published doing. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
It’s like a banana farm for guns! ~ Brandon Sanderson.
The best liars are those who tell the truth most of the time. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? I believe that my own morality – which answers only to my heart – is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Good men can make terrible kings. But bad men cannot make good kings. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
If men should read these words, let them know that power is a heavy burden. Seek not to be bound by its chains. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Great Brandon Sanderson Quotes
The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
I’m so storming pure I practically belch rainbows. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Too many of us take great pains with what we ingest through our mouths, and far less with what we partake of through our ears and eyes. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don’t know how to read. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
In the end, I worry that my arrogance shall destroy us all. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Sometimes the prize is not worth the costs. The means by which we achieve victory are as important as the victory itself. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
I write those words in steel for anything else not set in metal cannot be trusted. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
A man can only stumble for so long before he either falls or stands up straight. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
My behavior is nonetheless, deplorable. Unfortunately, I’m quite prone to such bouts of deplorability – take for instance, my fondness for reading books at the dinner table. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Better to be the failure who nobly strived than the success who never really had to. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
There was honor in facing the consequences of one’s actions. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
I am mountains that crush. I am waves that crash. I am storms that shatter. I am the end. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
In the end, all men die. How you lived will be far more important to the Almighty than what you accomplished. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Eternity ended ten years ago. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
My job is not to save ‘The Wheel of Time’, to fix ‘The Wheel of Time’, or anything like that. My job is not to screw it up. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
A man’s emotions are what define him, control is the hallmark of true strength. To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
I strive for nothing if not consistency. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Never throw the first punch. If you have to throw the second, try to make sure they don’t get up for a third. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Unique Brandon Sanderson Quotes
That’s the point, isn’t it? We have to live on, no matter how hard it gets. We’ll win in the end. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Sometimes, people only seem determined upon one course because they have been offered no other options. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Nothing will train you to write better as a writer, than working on your next book. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of changing. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Novels aren’t just happy escapes; they are slivers of people’s souls, nailed to the pages, dripping ink from veins of wood pulp. Reading the right one at the right time can make all the difference. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Overcome your guilt. Care, but not too much. Take responsibility, but don’t blame yourself. Protect, save, help- but know when to give up. They’re precarious ledges to walk. How do I do it? ~ Brandon Sanderson.
To live is to have worries and uncertainties. Keep them inside, and they will destroy you for certain – leaving behind a person so callused that emotion can find no root in his heart. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
It was amazing how many books one could fit into a room, assuming one didn’t want to move around very much. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Words are where most change begins. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
I will protect those who cannot protect themselves. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
At times, it seems to me that to be human is to want that which we cannot have. For some, this is power. For me, it is peace. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
The right belief is like a good cloak, I think. If it fits you well, it keeps you warm and safe. The wrong fit however, can suffocate. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Short Brandon Sanderson Quotes
Every man is a hero of his own story. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
This world, it is a tempest sometimes. But remember, the sun always rises again. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
People can do great things. However, there are some things they just CAN’T do. I, for instance, have not been able to transform myself into a Popsicle, despite years of effort. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty. They sat atop the world’s highest cliff, overlooking the land and seeing nothing. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
A man can only lead when others accept him as their leader, and he has only as much authority as his subjects give to him. All of the brilliant ideas in the world cannot save your kingdom if no one will listen to them. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
You see, that is the sad, sorry, terrible thing about sarcasm. It’s really funny. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
We were like deaf people trying to dance to a beat we couldn’t hear, long after the music actually stopped. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Honestly, for an evil god of darkness, he certainly can be dull. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Bitterness is repaid more often than kindness. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Holding your brain hostage against your own stupidity – that was how to get stuff done. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
Why do they call it research if I’ve only done it this one time? ~ Brandon Sanderson.
To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
And the warrior’s way was not to run from failure, but to own up to it and do better. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
The man who wants you to trust him is the one you must fear the most. ~ Brandon Sanderson.
So these were the 108 top Brandon Sanderson quotes and sayings that are inspirational.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on James Madison quotes and Charles Mackay quotes.
